The invention relates generally to new collaborative opportunities arising from the recently available ability to deliver digital publications on the web.
It has become commonplace to view a wide variety of documents on the web, and to “share” them with others by means of various social media platforms such as Facebook® and Pinterest®. Sharing of documents provides opportunities for collaboration among numerous users, all of whom have an opportunity to add comments about the shared item, which others can see and build upon. Many websites now include a built-in set of icons by which a user can initiate a sharing operation. For example, if a user selects an icon for sharing on Facebook, a dialog comes up that permits the user to share the web page currently being viewed, or a particular element of the web page identified by URL, on the user's Facebook account. The ability to share only a particular element of a web page, rather than the entire page, can be useful for example if the web page is a composite of different elements which in some sense have independent significance to the user. This may occur, for example, on news websites, where many news stories are headlined and the user is interested in sharing only a particular story. Typically the sharing icon has previously been associated with the element to be shared. The user cannot usually share an element or portion of an element that does not already have an associated sharing icon, at least not without a cumbersome workaround.
Certain kinds of web pages do not lend themselves to easy sharing via social media. These include digitally published magazines, which often are designed to mimic the look and feel of a paper magazine, and often contain on each page an image element occupying the entire page. These kinds of publications have become available in this format only recently. In these publications, because of the size of the images, often the smallest element that can be shared is the size of a full page. Such an element can be cumbersome on a social network, where it is desirable to display the element itself (optionally with comments), among many other items shared or re-shared by the same user or others. Some websites address the problem of large elements by providing to the sharing service not the entire element, but rather a brief description of the element and perhaps a thumbnail. But this work-around can be inadequate for many purposes.
An opportunity therefore exists for improving the collaboration among users with respect to digital publications containing very large images. Better collaboration, leading to conversations of greater social, economic or scientific value, may result.